An author I like that I haven't seen mentioned here: SM Stirling..

[Fumesucker]

Stirling tends to do alternate history, my first exposure to his work was "Drakon" which is the last of his Domination of the Draka series. The Draka are some truly nasty villains who nevertheless are rather sympathetically portrayed by Stirling as a good deal more than one dimensional, they have a code of honor which they vigorously uphold. The Draka universe is probably rather unlikely by soc.history.what-if standards but is a truly chilling one despite that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Domination

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._M._Stirling

I just started a book by Stirling that I haven't heard of before, "The Sky People", it pays homage to ER Burroughs in that Venus is an inhabitable world with indeed something very close to humans indigenous to it as well as everything from carnosaurs to pteranodons to dire wolf analogs to something very like a sabertooth tiger.

Knowing Stirling, this will all be explained in a hard SFish manner as the book progresses. The western nations and the eastern block have both started colonizing Venus at the time of the book and evidence so far points to something having caused Venus to change from what it like in our universe to something very earthlike in about the last 200 million years.

If you like military SF and are not squeamish about graphical depictions of violence and somewhat less graphic sex you might like to give Stirling a try.

Stirling collaborated with Anne McCaffrey on "The City Who Fought", another book with some truly nasty villains which also uses McCaffrey's "shellpersons" from "The Ship Who Sang", he has also collaborated with David Drake and others..

[SheilaT]

1. He's also a nice guy

About a year ago I went to a book reading by him for his latest book in the Dies the Fire series.

[Fumesucker]

2. Glad to hear that..

Stirling definitely has a knack for portraying some nasty villains, it's good that it's not because he *is* one. :)

[SheilaT]

3. My guess is that someone who really

is a nasty villain would not have enough self-awareness to write about them accurately.

Not that some nasty people might not also be good writers, but I suspect they'd be better at writing about some other kinds of people.

[Ignis]

4. Heartily recommended!

I started with Stirling's "Peshawar Lancers," and was immediately hooked on his writing.

I've now read the entire "Change" series, and I continue to be impressed. I don't read a lot of military-focused hard SF, but I do enjoy Stirling's eye for detail and the minor logistic changes in alternative history that can cause massive divergence from the historical record.

[Fumesucker]

5. I've read a couple of the "Island In the Sea of Time" series..

Nantucket Island gets sent back a couple or three thousand years in time one night, their struggles to maintain a civilization are well thought out and quite interesting.

[Ignis]

6. Yes, there are 3 series centered around The Change.

One is the Nantucket one, as you mentioned, which goes back in time. The other two deal with the modern world--minus Nantucket Island ;) --and how it deals with a shift in some basic scientific laws that confounds electricity, gunpowder, etc. Set mostly in Oregon, and really quite fascinating.

And as always, great villains. :)

[Greyskye]

7. Great books, really like his writing.

I'll have to read some of his others as well.

[MrModerate]

8. I'm quite fond of the Nantucket series (Islands and Dies the Fire threads) . . .

But couldn't get through The Sky People or any of his purely military fiction.

[TygrBright]

9. Wonderful writer. One of the few writers who TOTALLY CREEPED ME OUT with his villains.

The Draka are unquestionably THE scariest, creepiest villains ever created, IMHO.

By the time I read the final chapter in that saga it went into the same category as "Saving Private Ryan" in my file:

1. Truly great concept
2. Truly greatly executed
3. Incredibly riveting
4. Very glad I experienced it
5. Will never put myself through that again

The only Stirlings I haven't been able to get into are the alternate history/post apocalypse fantasies, but that's just because I don't like the genre.

Did you know that he did a sequel to "City Who Fought?"

appreciatively,
Bright

[Fumesucker]

10. Yeah, I knew there was a sequel to TCWF but I haven't found it yet...

All my reading is from used bookstores and online book swapping services, I don't have the money for new books. :(

[Ignis]

11. Yay for a bump for one of my favorite authors.

I'm heading to the library today to pick up my copy of The Sword of the Lady.

:bounce:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. I picked up that "emberverse" series or whatever the fuck it's called.

The 1st one was marginally readable.

The 2nd one was fucking horrible and he was just basically plagiarizing LOTR. I mean wtf, does he really think other people haven't read that before and won't recognize it?

[Ignis]

13. Which, the very first (Nantucket-based) trilogy?

Or the post-Change ones?

[Fumesucker]

14. Opinions are like noses.

Most people have one and they often differ..

Try "The Stone Dogs", it's nothing like LOTR..